1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a vehicular lamp, a vehicular component part for use in the vehicular lamp, and a method of producing the vehicular component part. More particularly, the invention relates to a technical field for securing a good molded state of a vehicular component part.
2. Description of Related Art
In some vehicular lamps, predetermined various parts are disposed inside an outer lamp casing that is constructed of, for example, a cover and a lamp housing. In such a vehicular lamp, a vehicular component part molded of resin through the use of a molding die that includes a movable die and a stationary die is used as a component part that constitutes the vehicular lamp.
The vehicular component parts made of resin include, for example, an extension that shields portions of various component parts disposed inside an outer lamp casing so that the extension improves an appearance that is visually perceived from outside, a reflector that reflects light emitted from a light source, etc.
In some of such vehicular lamps, a surface of a vehicular component part as described above is provided with mirror surfaces and semi-gloss surfaces (grained surfaces) (see, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2008-71556 (JP 2008-71556 A)). The mirror surfaces and the semi-gloss surfaces are formed by printing molding surfaces of mirror surface-molding portions and molding surfaces of semi-gloss surface-molding portions, respectively, which are provided on a stationary die.
In the case where mirror surfaces and semi-gloss surfaces are formed in a mixed arrangement as a surface of a vehicular component part, the semi-gloss surfaces restrain the overall shiny appearance of the vehicular component part so that the vehicular component part is provided with a luxurious appearance, in comparison with the case where the surface of the vehicular component part is formed only by mirror surfaces.
A semi-gloss surface (grained surface) as mentioned above is formed by printing the shapes of a plurality of protrusions formed on the molding surface of a semi-gloss surface-molding portion of the stationary die onto a surface of a molten resin. Therefore, when the vehicular component part is separated from the stationary die when the movable die and the stationary die are separated from each other, protrusions of semi-gloss surface-molding portions of the stationary die can sometimes contact semi-gloss surfaces of the vehicular component, resulting in formation of scratch wound-like line marking that is termed scoring (or gnawing) on the semi-gloss surfaces. If this occurs, the molded state of the vehicular component part will likely be degraded.
The smaller the draft angle of a stationary die for a corresponding vehicular component part is, the more such line marking (scoring) is likely to occur. Therefore, in order to prevent occurrence of line marking, it is desirable to increase the draft angle of the stationary die for the vehicular component part.
However, if the draft angle is increased, for example, in the case where the vehicular component part is an extension, the opening portion positioned in alignment with an opening face of the reflector reduces in size and the reflector becomes correspondingly smaller, so that it can become difficult to secure a sufficient amount of reflecting light from the reflector or having other drawbacks.